Looking at Alex Perren’s batting average, you would think she was hitting a beach ball and not a softball these days for the Oak Grove Lady Warriors. After leading the team at .458 a season ago, Perren has raised her average nearly 100 points this year, her junior season.
“I feel like I’ve grown mentally because last year I started off a little bit shaky, and this year I’ve started out more strong,” she said. “I’m not really slacking right now.”
In March, Perren hit .558 (29-for-52) and drove in 17 runs against some of the toughest competition in the state. In addition to being in a strong division, the Lady Warriors played a tough non-conference schedule versus teams like Purvis, Neshoba Central, North Pike and Newton County.
“It’s especially hard when you play quality opponents,” Oak Grove coach Gary Ivy said. “We try to play as good a teams as we can. So to be able to hit .500 against them, that’s pretty outstanding. Really it is no matter who you’re playing against. I can say that’s a true average, too, because those little balls that take a bad hop and get by somebody, we don’t count those as a hit here. She’s earning everything she gets.”
Ivy has been at Oak Grove for 28 years, and Perren, who started her Lady Warrior career in the outfield and now catches, is already among the best players he’s had the opportunity to coach.
“When you consider she’s a natural right-hander and that we converted her over to a left-hander, that tells you what kind of athlete she is,” he said. “She can do it all. She can bunt, hit for power, base hit you, and fact is, she might be the best baserunner on the team. For a catcher, that’s pretty impressive.
“She’s just a great kid and a hard worker that doesn’t take days off.”
With Perren leading the way, the Lady Warriors are making a push for a state championship in Ivy’s final season as their coach. They’ve won six of their last seven games, with the lone loss coming at Petal a week ago, 8-7. On Tuesday, the Lady Warriors exacted revenge and run-ruled the Panthers, 10-0.
“That tells you that you’re starting to do the right things and make the right adjustments,” Ivy said. “We’re capable of going the distance as long as we play the way we played in that game. When we’ve got our pitching going and we hit like we did last night and play errorless defense, we’re as good as anybody.”
Perren says they’re extra-motivated to send Ivy, a three-time state champion at Oak Grove, out on top and also follow in the footsteps of the teams that came before them.
“Our team, we feed off coach Ivy, and we feed off our own want to win it because we have a bunch of young girls, and nobody on this team has won a state championship,” she said. “That was all a couple years ago when the girls had won it, so we want it bad.”
Perren is Sports601’s Hattiesburg Powerade Softball Player of the Month for March.
